An influential industry lobby has answered the Trump administration’s deregulatory summons with more than a dozen recommendations that mainly target EPA air and chemical programs.
Among the ideas pitched by the National Association of Manufacturers: fully repeal the stronger soot exposure standard released last year; rethink EPA’s approach to reviewing chemicals for their potential health and environmental effects; and scrap an air permitting proposal issued last year during former President Joe Biden’s tenure.
Under Biden, EPA was responsible for many “burdensome and unworkable regulations,” a senior officer with the manufacturers association wrote in the Thursday missive to agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.
In response to a February executive order by President Donald Trump, the trade group released the letter as part of a lengthy wish list that also suggests changes to regulations issued by the Energy Department, Interior Department and Securities and Exchange Commission, among other agencies.
“Manufacturers strongly believe that the U.S. does not have to choose between economic development and protecting the environment and public health — we can do both,” said Charles Crain, the association’s managing vice president for policy.
But the tension between the two may not always be so easily reconciled.
NAM, for example, seeks a complete rollback of the stricter annual soot standard, which tightened the limit on what are technically known as fine particles, from 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 9 micrograms.
While EPA predicts that the tighter limit will ultimately save thousands of lives, Crain wrote that the agency “did not consider the tremendous costs and burdens that will now come with attempting to meet this new standard.”
For similar reasons, Crain asked EPA to make no change to the existing ground-level ozone standard of 70 parts per billion.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is a lung irritant tied to asthma attacks in children and other serious respiratory ills. Two years ago, most members of an expert EPA advisory panel concluded that the scientific evidence warrants a cut to at least 60 ppb.
The association also wants EPA to reconsider the approaches used on virtually all chemical reviews over the past four years.
For existing chemicals, including well-established carcinogens such as asbestos and trichloroethylene, the letter says the Biden administration used an assessment framework that relied “on assumptions about exposures, leading to unnecessary regulation and greater costs.” The Trump administration has already said it will redo that framework, but it has not announced plans to reconsider rules or evaluations for specific chemicals.
The letter applies pressure on regulators to speed up new chemical reviews, which NAM and multiple other industry groups criticize as an overly cautious, deadline-missing program.
The Trump administration has signaled streamlining reviews for new chemicals is a top priority.
NAM singles out the three biggest “forever chemicals” rules finalized under Biden: PFAS reporting requirements, drinking water limits and hazardous designations under the Superfund law for two of the most notorious substances in the chemical family.
It’s still unclear how the Trump administration plans to tackle per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which is an umbrella term for thousands of chemicals that don’t naturally degrade, many of which have been tied to serious health problems. Speaking last month to state environmental leaders, Zeldin signaled intentions to take another look at the PFAS regulations.
Trump has made a home-grown manufacturing revival a top priority of his second term.
Asked Thursday to what extent EPA plans to incorporate the association’s recommendations into its plans, spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said in a statement that the agency “will continue to implement its core mission of protecting human health and the environment while advancing President Trump’s agenda and Administrator Zeldin’s Powering the Great American Comeback initiative.”
A perennial focus of manufacturers is the pre-construction permitting program known as New Source Review that aims to ensure that plant expansions and other major projects don’t undermine local air quality with more pollution.
NAM now “respectfully encourages” EPA to scrap a Biden-era oversight proposal that Crain said would expand EPA’s power over all state, tribal and local regulators that issue New Source Review permits. Many of those permits are not controversial, Crain wrote.
“Involving the EPA in these permitting decisions would slow the process considerably,” he wrote, “delaying job-creating investments across our industry.”
